The Republican Economic Stimulus Plan and Religious Ideology

THE REPUBLICAN ECONOMIC STIMULUS PLAN AND RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY

-- Elizabeth Spiro Clark

With four alarm fire bells ringing that the US is headed for a bad recession, and agreement that quick stimulus is needed, it seems slightly loony that the President and Republican leaders find it so hard to back away from their market fundamentalist nostrums. Candidate John McCain is even willing to prescribe cutting federal spending, i.e. pursue an anti stimulus approach to our economic problems, and for the rest of the leadership, they have settled on tax rebates for those who can afford to sit on them. The economic stimulus measure experts say would work the fastest is getting money in the hands of the poor who will spend it. Republicans treat that approach as some sort of deal with the devil, and maybe a deal with the devil is precisely what it is for the Republicans. Read with an eye to implications, Republican statements on religion have a lot to say about where they are coming from on economics.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s December speech on “Faith in America” may have its brief moment in the campaign limelight but it is also a timeless source text. It opens a door on a religious ideology that explains why its true believers see government as their enemy. In this ideological universe wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on a misbegotten war in Iraq is a good thing, not just because it promises "victory", but because it denies the "other enemy", our own government, billions of dollars for health care, disaster relief, infrastructure maintenance, education, and even much needed economic stimulus to ward off recession.

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone." This was the central theme of Romney's speech, using "freedom requires religion" to point up the threat of secularism to Americans. "Freedom requires religion,” means opposition to what Romney calls the "religion" of secularism. Government is secular and so off bounds as a “window for the soul”.

The second clause – "religion requires freedom" - links directly to the dogma of small government. The reasoning goes something like this: government stands in the way of the perfect liberty that is the condition for the individual to choose virtue. Decisions on social welfare issues are private matters between the individual and God. In the private sphere the individual is to be free to take personal responsibility for becoming rich and famous, or a good churchgoer or mentor, or failing to become these things. That is what Romney means when he says “Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

Romney’s short three sentences cover a third dogma: government must be smaller (except in defense) but religion bigger. "I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from the 'the God who gave us liberty.'" This, he says, is because despite differences in theology between churches "we share a common creed of moral convictions." "We acknowledge the Creator," including, as Romney enumerates, "with religious displays in public places.”

It is hardly a “eureka moment” that Romney approves of nativity scenes in courthouse courtyards. This is a familiar political issue as is the Republican attack on “tax and spend” big government liberals. Everyone knows Republicans want to kill off government. However, the ideas that define these Republican anti government battles as a religious and moral duty not well understood, and are breathtaking in the scope of their ambitions.

The ideas get spelled out on web sites like that of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty (www.Acton.org [1]). The Acton Institute's leader, the Rev Robert Siroco, who writes extensively in sectarian and mainstream publications, recently wrote praising Romney’s speech – while urging him to acknowledge the supremacy of religious authority. He earlier praised President Bush's first veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in an article entitled "How the Faithful can oppose children's health plan expansion in good conscience" (Detroit Times, 10/16). According to Siroco, "state programs" like SCHIP undermine the creation of a "flourishing and free economy, which is the essential condition for universal coverage." The real solution to the lack of universal healthcare coverage is "eliminating taxes." Until resulting prosperity brings about universal coverage there are private efforts that can address health problems, i.e. charity.

Another contributor on the Acton Institute website had this to say about charity: "The charity worker of a century ago did not press for government programs but instead showed poor people how to move up while resisting enslavement to governmental masters." Government stands in the way of the perfect liberty that is the condition for the individual to choose virtue (“opening the windows of the soul”). Given the specter of “enslavement”, no wonder the Republicans aren’t keen to extend unemployment insurance, expand food stamp programs or help out “non-taxpayers” to stimulate the economy. Bush is right in sync with the 19th century charity worker, and has been since he took office in his first term, fencing off social programs from government through faith-based initiatives and other private sector approaches.

It is not an illegitimate injection of religion into the campaign to oppose this ideology directly. The idea that secular government is opposed to moral value is not only a danger to rational policy making to head off a recessions, it is itself morally corrosive. If we want to act on our moral values on large social issues, shutting off government means shutting off our (collective) power to act morally. Individuals develop their moral natures in many spheres of action, among them working together through government for the betterment of our common life. The small government doctrine means a shrinking not just of the public space but also of the moral space inside the individual. Elizabeth Spiro Clark